No sexing up, insists Blair

Outside, a protester wanted him tried as a war criminal, but inside the packed courtroom 73 at London's Royal Courts of Justice, Tony Blair yesterday faced the more immediate charge that he had "sexed up" the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

"This was an absolutely fundamental charge," the Prime Minister told the Hutton inquiry. "This was an allegation that we had behaved in a way which . . . if true would have merited my resignation."

Mr Blair, looking confident and tanned from a recent holiday at Cliff Richard's villa in Barbados, said he was unaware that British intelligence agents were concerned about claims in last September's Iraq dossier, adding: "There was no reason for us to doubt the intelligence at all."

The dossier had made the best case for why Saddam had to be dealt with "within the bounds of what was right and what was proper".

The inquiry is investigating events surrounding the death of David Kelly, who was the source of a BBC story which claimed that 10 Downing Street had knowingly inserted incorrect information into the dossier.

Mr Blair, whose popularity has been badly damaged by the affair, said he had been careful not to overstate the threat. For instance, he had not overplayed the claim that Saddam could deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes.

If anything, he said, the commentary about the dossier at the time had criticised the Government for being too cautious.

"The September dossier was not making a case for war; it was making a case for the issue to be dealt with." It had been "owned" by the joint intelligence committee and its head, John Scarlett, but it was entirely right that Downing Street had input.

Mr Blair said his government had produced the dossier in response to pressure to produce evidence against Saddam.

He had been unaware of the details of talks between his communications chief, Alastair Campbell, and Mr Scarlett.

The Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon, has sought to save his own career by distancing himself from the strategy of naming Dr Kelly, who was employed by the Ministry of Defence.

On Wednesday, he told the inquiry that decisions that lead to Dr Kelly being identified as the BBC's source were handled by Mr Blair's office, especially by Mr Campbell and the chief of staff, Jonathan Powell.

Mr Hoon denied there was any conspiracy on his part to name Dr Kelly and said he was only trying to get to the facts behind the BBC report by its defence correspondent Andrew Gilligan.

Dr Kelly, a former UN weapons inspector, apparently committed suicide near his Oxfordshire home in mid-July, eight days after being named.

His death followed several weeks of fighting between the Government and the BBC over the truth of its report, which Mr Blair's office vehemently denied.

A poll by the Telegraph group this week found more than two-thirds of voters believe, after hearing evidence at the inquiry, that Mr Blair duped them into going to war with Iraq.

The Government's case was bolstered this week by evidence from Mr Scarlett, the spy chief who authored the dossier. He said that while Mr Blair's office offered suggestions about some of its language, the dossier was the work of intelligence agencies.

He denied that Downing Street had inserted the 45-minute claim. But the inquiry has also revealed an email from Mr Powell which warned that a late draft of the dossier "does nothing to demonstrate a threat, let alone an imminent threat".